Sliding gate actuating mechanism

ABSTRACT

An actuating system for operating sliding gates of a railway hopper car in which the mechanism contains an overcenter latch for insuring that the door remains closed when in the closed position for safety purposes.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims benefit from U. S. Provisional Application Ser.No. 60/712,559, filed Aug. 30, 2005, which application is incorporatedherein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates generally to an apparatus for opening thesliding gates of a railway hopper car, and, in particular, to a novelapparatus for simultaneously opening all of the sliding gates of arailway hopper car, regardless of the direction in which the gate ismoved.

2. Description of the Prior Art.

A common type of railroad freight car in use today is the coveredfreight car of the type wherein the load is discharged through slidingdoors, which are also known as sliding gates, on the underside of thebody. Such cars are generally referred to as covered hopper cars and areused to haul grain, phosphate, plastic, and other dry bulk commoditiesthat require protection from natural elements.

After covered hopper cars are spotted over an unloading pit, the slidinggates on the bottoms of the cars are presently opened and closed byeither of two methods: Each gate can be manually cranked open or closedwith a steel bar that is inserted into a fitting on the gate, one gateat a time; or, each gate can be opened and closed by manually applying arotary drive air wrench to the same fitting on the gate, one gate at atime. While either of these methods will open the gates and allow thecovered hopper to unload, both are time consuming because of the manualoperation and because of the need to open each gate individually.Moreover, both methods are labor intensive and expose to injury thosepersons who are manually opening the sliding gates.

The problem of safely and efficiently unloading hopper cars has beenaddressed previously.

U.S. Pat. No. 3,633,515, issued to Shaver, et al., describes a poweroperated door opening and closing mechanism for rotating doors; U.S.Pat. No. 3,596,609, issued to Ortner et al., describes a system forsimultaneously opening rotating hopper doors. U.S. Pat. No. 3,348,501,issued to Stevens et al., describes a sliding gate system, individuallyactivated, for discharging the hopper contents through either one largeopening or two smaller side-by-side openings; French Pat. No. 1,188,761describes a sliding gate system which automatically opens all thesliding gates of a railway car in one direction.

U.S. Patent No. 4,628,825, issued to Taylor, provides an actuatingsystem for operating sliding gates of a railway hopper car which opensall of the gates simultaneously, regardless of the direction which thegates must move to open. However, none of the above systems address thelocking of the mechanism so that there would be no chance of themechanism opening unintentionally. To avoid this problem, an overcenterlatch design is used in the present invention.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is an object of the present invention to provide a mechanism for ahopper car having sliding gates that will simultaneously open all of thegates, regardless of the direction the gates must move to open.

It is a further object of this invention to provide a system for openingall of the sliding gates of a hopper car simultaneously from one powersource such that the car can be unloaded quickly and safely.

It is still a further object of this invention to provide a mechanismfor simultaneous opening of all sliding gates of a hopper car that canbe easily retrofitted to existing hopper railway cars as well as to beincorporated into new construction.

It is still a further object of the present invention to provide anovercenter latch on the actuating mechanism to lessen any chance thatthe doors will open unintentionally.

These and other objects may be accomplished by use of a shiftingmechanism mounted on the underside of the hopper which is coupled toeach of the sliding gates which opens all gates simultaneously,regardless of direction for opening, when activated by a single powersource. Levers connecting each sliding door to the shifting mechanismpivot in the proper manner to enable each door to open as the shiftingmechanism is moved in one direction.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a plan view of a hopper car capable of using the presentinvention;

FIG. 2A-C, inclusive, is a plan view of the mechanism of the presentinvention;

FIG. 3 is a cross sectional view of the mechanism of the presentinvention.

DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

Referring now to FIG. 1, there is shown a typical hopper car, generallydesignated at 100, equipped with a preferred object of the presentinvention. Three hoppers 12 are shown, with doors 102 a covering theoutlet of each hopper.

FIGS. 2A-C show the actuating mechanism of the present invention indetail. An air cylinder 104 is shown in FIG. 2C. Cylinder 104 isattached to a support 106 which is coupled to the underside of thehopper car 100 by a pin 108. The movable end of cylinder 104 is attachedto a clevis 110 which is rotatably coupled to a lever 112 by a pin 114.The other end of lever 112 is rigidly affixed on a rotatable shaft 116.Shaft 116 extends horizontally along the railroad car (see FIG. 3)beneath a center sill 118. A pair of supports 120 are affixed to centersill 118 to support shaft 116.

Also rigidly coupled on shaft 116 on either side of center sill 118 area pair of levers 122. At the opposite ends of each lever 122, a pair oflinks 124 are coupled to levers 122 by virtue of a pin 126 which rideswithin a slot 128 in each link 124. The opposite ends of each link 124is coupled for rotation to a door connector 130 by a pin 132. Door 102 awhich covers each hopper is connected between door connectors 130.

When door 102 is in its closed position, levers 122 and links 124 are atthe positions shown at 132. A position stop is provided by a bolt 134which contacts lever 122. In this position, pin 126 passes beyond aplane through the centers of pin 132 and link 124, which is shown byline 136, providing an overcenter latch to help insure that door 102 aremains closed. When it is desired to open hopper door 102 a, air issupplied to cylinder 104, causing clevis 110 to move to the left in FIG.2C. Lever 112 rotates shaft 116, causing links 124 to shift to thepositions shown at 138. This motion causes pin 26 to move to theposition shown at 140, crossing the between pin 132 and shaft 116,releasing the overcenter latch. Continued movement of clevis 110 causespin 114 to move to the position shown at 114′, and lever 112 is rotatedby shaft 116 to the position shown at 112′. This continued movementcauses pin 126 to move to the position shown at 126′, and lever 124 isrotated by shaft 116 to the position shown at 124′, and finally to theposition shown at 126″. At this open position, levers 122 and 124 reachtheir final position at 122″ and 124″. In this position, hopper door 102a is shifted to the open position.

To close the hopper doors, air cylinder 104 is reversed, moving clevis110 to the right, causing the mechanism to reverse.

1) An actuating system for operating sliding gates of a railway hoppercar which contains an overcenter latch, comprising: an air cylinder; arotatable shaft; a lever coupling said air cylinder to said shaft; asliding gate door; a pair of levers coupled together by a first pin,with an end of one of the levers coupled to said door by a second pin;and a plane through said second pin and said shaft, where when the dooris in the closed position, said first pin has traveled through said planto create an overcenter latching effect to insure that said door willremain closed.